Everton scored twice in injury-time to snatch a dramatic 3-3 draw at home to Manchester United, who left Wayne Rooney out of their squad after a week of allegations about his private life.

Rooney did not even travel to Goodison Park as manager Sir Alex Ferguson, on the occasion of his 700th Premier League match, claimed he wanted to protect the 24-year-old from abuse from the fans with whom he used to be a favourite.

The disruption appeared to affect his team-mates early on as they fell behind to a Steven Pienaar goal but Darren Fletcher, Nemanja Vidic and Dimitar Berbatov put United well ahead before the Toffees' stunning late comeback through Tim Cahill and Mikel Arteta.

Everton took the lead in the 39th minute. Patrice Evra missed an ambitious overhead-kick clearance to put Arteta charging through on goal and although he shot straight at Edwin Van der Sar, Leon Osman turned the rebound to Pienaar at the far post who rolled home.

Two minutes before half-time, however, Nani's cross was diverted home by Fletcher and United took just three minutes of the second half to turn things around.

Nani's corner from Berbatov's deflected shot was only half-cleared and when Paul Scholes returned the ball to the Portugal international wide on the right he swung over a cross for an unmarked Vidic to head in from five yards.

United stretched their lead in the 66th minute. Scholes` raking pass picked out Berbatov and his first touch brilliantly took him clear of Sylvain Distin.

With acres of space to run into he took five or six paces before lashing an early shot into the bottom corner, taking Tim Howard by surprise.

However, in a dramatic finish Cahill headed home in injury-time before Arteta's deflected strike snatched an unlikely point.